Many of us in the industry had been hearing rumors about a single malt whisky coming out of the Pacific Northwest—one that supposedly tasted like its Scottish counterparts. The local demand was apparently outrageous (akin to what Bay Area residents feel towards St. George distillery) and the small releases were selling out faster than the distillery could bottle them. The reviews were solid, the feedback genuine, and the excitement was palpable—depending on who you talked to. The distillery was called Westland and, supposedly, their single malt whiskey was the real deal; not something wildly-different, radical, or new-makey—just plain delicious.

We were all very intrigued. Of course, we wouldn't know anything for sure until we tasted it.

Sometime later this bottle (pictured above) appeared on my desk. Westland had signed on with a California distributor and their whiskey was finally going to be sold statewide; I was finally getting my chance to taste this heralded elixir. The price wasn't going to be inexpensive (around $70, I was told), but the quality was for once going to back up the hype (again, I was told). After years and years of beery, crafty, "interesting", immature, "promising" American single malt whiskey dominating the marketplace, was this the moment I had been waiting for? Was Westland going to be the one domestic distillery to stop fucking around with gimmicky experimentation and make something delicious we could all get behind as fans of single malt whisky? Was their American Single Malt Whiskey going to change the face of the domestic market, offering consumers something double-distilled from malted barley on both a wash and spirit still at their own facility—just like actual Scottish distilleries do—and not simply a hybrid spirit distilled from brewer's mash and run through an alembic column still?

Yes.

That's right, folks—Seattle's Westland distillery is the "new hope" we've been looking for in the battle for microdistillery quality. The whiskey is indeed delicious, and the hype well-deserved—the Westland American Single Malt is a landmark release for American single malt whiskey. Made of five different types of roasted barley, the flavors are familiar yet not exactly Scottish in nature. There's much more new wood infiltrating the palate, but it's nothing like you'd expect from a Bourbon or rye whiskey. There's absolutely no question—from the first whiff on the nose, to the moment it hits your tongue—that you're drinking single malt whiskey. The soft-fruited flavors of a classic Highland expression come racing in immediately, bolstered by a wave of vanilla from the new oak. The richness maintains its composure all the way to the finish, which is more dominated by the wood and not quite as impressive as the entry. All in all, it's not an entirely mindblowing experience, but it is pretty impressive juice given what we've been subjected to for the last few years.

But then something happens—you keep drinking it and it starts to grow on you; like a song you keep hearing on the radio or a movie on TBS every night that you watch repeatedly. You start craving the Westland—you want that extra dose of new oak that the Scottish selections on your bar don't quite provide. You start thinking about what would happen if more Scottish distilleries aged their malts in new oak, and the lovely combination of fruit, dark cocoa, and vanilla begins to call your name as you sleep. My take on the Westland after having an open bottle for a few weeks is much more heartfelt than it was after my first few sips (which is why spending time with a bottle is so important). What started as simply a positive and mildly-exciting experience has now grown into a more-affectionate relationship.

Had I tasted the Westland American Single Malt five months ago, it would definitely be—without a doubt—the best American single malt whisky I've ever tasted. But as Yoda tells Ben Kenobi in Return of the Jedi: "There is another."

As of right now we have the Westland in stock, so you can try it out for yourselves. If you're searching for exciting new whiskies of quality, this is definitely something you're going to want to check out. In a few weeks, I'll be back to tell you about the other upcoming American single malt that really impressed me recently—and that one will only be sold at K&L.

There is reason to be hopeful about the future. The Luke and Leia of American Single Malt whisky are finally upon us.

Since I was going to be in Modesto this weekend, I figured why not truck it on down to Atwater and meet David Souza at his home distillery. We're planning a big email later this month concerning his new Corbin Cash Merced Rye Whiskey, so it might be nice to have a few photos to help highlight the promotion. Plus, I was just plain excited to see a local Central Valley distillery. My dad and I made the thirty minute drive down Highway 99 and exited into farm country just north of the Atwater city limit. When we pulled into the driveway we could see the Holstein still through the open garage door. That's when I realized I had forgotten my camera and would have to use my iPhone for the rest of the appointment; hence, not nearly as high a quality of photo as I would like. Bummer.

David and Erik were there to greet us and take us immediately over to their makeshift mill, currently grinding down a few sacks of freshly-harvested rye. They've got the science down with their milling, but they're lacking in speed at the moment. David is working on a few solutions to help the scale of production, but it seems to have been working fine so far.

I've seen a hundred different distilleries in my time with K&L, so I didn't need a run down on the fermentation tanks or the still practice—what I wanted to see was the farm. Corbin is one of the only distillers I know of that handles every aspect of their production—from the seed to the bottle. We all hopped in David's truck and drove out to one of his many sweet potato fields where we got a lesson in potato planting.

A twelve-seat plough is used to plant new sweet potato seedlings into the earth. In order to get a seedling you first have to take harvested potatoes, pile them up in rows, and then cover those hotbeds with a few inches of dirt. The potatoes will eventually sprout and produce new vines that are then clipped by hand and placed into little bags. The twelve men on the plough then pull these seedlings from the bag and place them one-by-one into the wheel mechanism that deposits the plant down into the earth.

You can see the already-growing rows of sweet potatoes all around you in Atwater.

Of course, David's family has always used rye as a rotator crop to help replenish the soil once a crop of sweet potatoes has been harvested; which is how why they also decided to make rye whiskey in addition to sweet potato vodka. There are therefore fields of freshly-harvested rye scattered in between the rows of sweet potatoes.

We were lucky enough to see a sweet potato harvest as well. A slowly-moving plough, pulled by a giant tractor, digs about twenty inches into the earth and pulls everything out onto a conveyor belt where hired workers sort through the selection and organize the potatoes by type and grade.

Some potatoes go to market, and some go back to the distillery for distillation purposes. David told us, "Before we founded the distillery, we were selling the extra sweet potatoes for cattle feed, but we would only get about $5 per 1,000 pound container." Distilling the unsalable surplus was a much more attractive idea (and fun!).

After the potatoes are harvested, they're washed and then boxed up by workers on the assembly line nearby. When you talk about "handcrafted" spirits, the Corbin products bring that over-used (and often ill-fitting) term to an entirely new level. Hundreds of Corbin hands are touching these sweet potatoes long before they ever get cooked and fermented.

Visiting a distillery is a great way to put a name and a place to the products we enjoy drinking. Visiting David and Erik at Corbin today, however, was an entirely different experience. It was more about farming than anything else—and, let me tell you, these guys know a lot about farming sweet potatoes. And their spirits are pretty damn good, too. Visiting Corbin is more of a reminder about what's going into your spirits, long before they're ever distilled.

I always got that growing up as a kid—"So you're German, huh?" No not really.

Yes, my mother is a high school German teacher. Yes, I speak German. Yes, there are always German people staying at our house. Yes, I have a master's degree in German Literature. Yes, I can enjoy the music of David Hasselhoff, but no—I am not German.

I think there's a little Swiss-German action on my mom's side of the family, but there's no real heritage. Culture, however, is more about familiarity and nostalgia than it is purity; it's really a sense of identification and comfort, in my opinion. And when it comes to soccer, I identify with the Deutsche Nationalmannschaft more than my own American counterparts. In 1986, I was in staying with my parents in Mainz—a small town in Germany's Rheinland near Frankfurt—watching a tiny television set when Argentina beat West Germany in the cup final. I remember eating gummy bears and playing with Playmobil toys while the screen flickered away. In 1990, we celebrated with our German friends from Iserlohn when West Germany exacted its revenge on the defending champions and hoisted the Weltmeisterschaft trophy into the air; it was my first real taste of sports-related excitement (something I wouldn't really feel again until the Giants won the World Series).

The party at the Berliner Tor in 2006

In 1994, when the tournament was in the states, our friends Lilo and Dieter came to visit for the summer and we watched Brazil go all the way through (Dieter seemed to know Germany stood no chance against the South American giants). In the summer of 1996, I was a high school exchange student in Germany and I stayed with my mother in a small youth hostel (or jungendherberge) in Bacharach, high upon the riesling-terraced cliffs, sitting in the heat of the common room as thirty or so sweaty Germans cheered their team past the Czech Republic in the Euro Cup final. That was a night I'll never forget.In 2006, when Germany finally hosted the World Cup again, I was there—working on my masters degree at the Freie Universität in Berlin—singing this song before every game:

...and sitting with a devastated crowd in the local Biergarten when Italy defeated the Nationalmannschaft and went on to be the world champion (although my wife and I did travel to Italy the next day and it was a giant party).

For my entire life I have rooted for the German national soccer team—in Germany with Americans, in America with Germans, with a beer or without a beer, as a kid with my parents, and as an adult with my wife. My relationship with the country and the language has continued to forge new relationships in my post-graduate career (a German artist created my wife's wedding ring after I sent him an email in German, and we got the jump on the Monkey 47 gin because I had communicated auf Deutsch with the Black Forest Distillery long before anyone knew it was coming to the states). Even though I rarely speak the language these days, I still keep up with friends I made while abroad and I still love reading Der Spiegel.

Today I am heading over to Modesto with a huge box of wine (magnums only, because Germans like big bottles), some sausages, cheese, and various other snacks where I will join my parents for another Germany/Argentina showdown. And it will be just like old times.

I just had a customer in the store today who wanted to build a quality, well-stocked home bar with all the basic necessities, but with one small caveat: he only wanted to spend around $100. Because many of you spend $100 on one mere bottle of single malt every month, it might seem crazy to think you could create an entire collection of spirits—good ones, nonetheless—for the same price, but it can be done. I did it today and the guy left with a big smile on his face (and he'll still have one when he gets home and opens everything because they're good products).

What did we go with? Here's the quick rundown based on today's inventory if you're on an extreme budget:

Vodka: Green Mark (Zelyonaya Marka) Russian Vodka $12.99 — A total steal. No one knows what it is in the U.S., but it's the third biggest selling vodka brand in the world (because if you're third in Russia, you're third in the entire world). It's clean and neutral in the best possible way.

General whisky: Royal Canadian Small Batch Canadian Whisky $12.99 — Today's upgraded version of Seagram's VO. Perfect for a number of uses and quite tasty on its own. I've been buying this for the past year just for my own personal drinking. At this price you should buy a case.

Gin: City of London Gin $14.99 — This is from the same distillery portfolio that imports Hayman's Old Tom and the Royal Dock London gins. It's clean, dry, and it's the personal home bar gin of both myself and Champagne buyer Gary Westby. Another unknown gem.

Tequila: Cimarron Blanco Tequila 1L $15.99 — That's right! Enrique Foneseca makes a clean, delicious blanco that comes in a liter and costs you a mere $15.99. Watch for the email next week going out to the big K&L database — this shit is going to FLY out of here.

Rum: 10 Cane Barbados Rum $13.99 — We've still got a bit left from the previous Dramarama deal, so might as well take advantage of it. Barbados quality, mega-discount price.